Transformers Campaign Micron - Arms Micron Firebolt

Takara Tomy decided to take a slightly different route when releasing the Transformers Prime series of toys in Japan.  This caught a lot of fans by surprise as the Japanese version of toys have traditionally been more screen accurate when compared to what Hasbro releases.  A lot of fans weren't happy w/ this decision and called the toys inferior...I however was happy that this different route meant more Microns!

While I have yet to share any Arms Micron toys here on the blog (they are actually stacked and just waiting to be opened) I did want to share an exclusive Micron.  Firebolt was given away to people who bought the Arms Micron AM-01 Optimus Prime toy in Japan.  Continuing the trend started during the United series the Micron is painted in gray and black to mimmick the colors of the original G1 Targetmaster of the same name.  Being that I love this mold I had to jump on this toy.

There isn't much more to say than I've already said in my previous look at this mold.  It's one of the better Targetmaster style Microns and now a little easier and less expensive to acquire now.

The League of Extraordinary Bloggers - Top 10 Movies

This week's assignment ought to be fun.  The question asked:  "What are your Top Ten Eleven movies?"

Now if you've been reading my blog one may think a live action Transformers movie would be on the list.  Nope.  While I enjoyed 2 of the 3 movies to some degree they aren't making my cut.  What will you may ask?  Keep reading.

I'm not listing these movies in any particular order, but I will start off with one of my favorites.

** EDIT **  How on earth could I have left off the 1986 animated Transformers the Movie?!?!

I couldn't believe as a 9 year old when I saw this movie that they actually killed Optimus Prime!  I knew they needed to introduce new characters and all to sell more toys, but couldn't they have just wrote him out of the story instead?  Funny how the backlash of that move made them re-write the story in the animated G.I. Joe movie and put Duke in a coma as opposed to dying.

#1 Dawn of the Dead (1978)

How can you not like the tag line "When there's no more room in Hell the dead will walk the Earth"?!  Ever since I was introduced to this movie courtesy of my older brother I've hailed it as one of my favorites.  Not to mention it still stands up today as one of the best horror movies of all time.

#2 Shaun of the Dead

Horror, gore and comedy at it's finest!  Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are sheer geniuses.  Just watching the trailer again makes me want to watch the movie again after work!

#3 The Burning

The 80's wasn't short on slasher flicks that is for sure.  There were a lot of crappy movies that don't deserve the B label, but the Burning wasn't one of these movies.  This movie stood out in a lot of ways and I can't believe it escaped my attention for 20+ years.  Tom Savini worked some magic w/ the special effects and we also got a good cast of actors and actresses including a young Jason (Seinfeld) Alexander.  Search this movie out on Netflix.

#4 The Goonies

By far one of my favorite movies growing up.  I'm sure this movie will show up on other League members' lists.

#5 Can't Buy Me Love

I have to admit this one is a guilty please of mine.  I always thought Amanda Peterson was rather hot as a teenager growing up.  Plus I could relate to Ronald in that I was never popular in school.  Still can't believe that's Patrick Dempsey.

#6 Iron Man 2

 

Loved the introduction of War Machine and setting up Black Widow's involvement in future Marvel films.  Robert Downey, Jr. continued to impress and amaze me as Tony Stark.  There couldn't have been a better casting of the character.

#7 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

It's not often that a remake of a classic movie (horror or any other genre) outweighs the original, but in this case I find the 2003 version of TCM to be awesome.  It also helps I get to stare at Jessica Biel for an hour and a half!

#8 The Great Outdoors

Dan Aykroyd and John Candy made a awesome comedy duo.  A classic comedy that must be seen by all.

#9 Coming to America

I was never a huge fan of Eddie Murphy, but there are so many scenes in this movie that made me laugh so hard.  One of his best movies easily.

#10 The Avengers

I'm a Marvel fanboy...I'll admit it.  This however is the definitive super-hero movie.  I was already pumped up going into this movie after seeing both of Iron Man's movie, Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America and they still exceeded all my expectations.  After seeing the cameo of the next villain I'm excited to see what direction Marvel Studios goes.

Don't like my list?  Why not check out other League members' lists?

• Green Plastic Squirt Gun
• Memories of Tomorrow
• Flashlights are Something to Eat 
• Michael May's Adventure Blog 
• UnderScoopFire!
• Whatever I Think Of!
• Branded in the 80's
• Life with Fandom

G.I. Joe Retaliation: Cobra Fangboat w/ Swamp-Viper

Get 'em while you can.  That's what was going through my mind over the Memorial Day weekend when I came across some freshly stocked G.I. Joe Retaliation toys at Target.  By now I'm sure you have heard that the movie has been pushed back to March, 2013.  Because of this move by Paramount, Hasbro has decided to leave the first wave of toys on retail shelves - but not ship any additional waves until closer to the release date of the movie.  I'm not sure what this means to the toys, but my guess is after they sell out most retailers won't bother to try and re-stock them.  Some Walmart stores aren't even carrying the new Retaliation toys because of poor G.I. Joe sales in the past.

When I first saw pictures of the Cobra Fangboat online I laughed.  Honestly.  That said when I found it recently on the shelf I started to sing a different tune.  The toy is based on the original Water Moccasin...a childhood favorite of mine.  When the Water Moccasin was re-released as the Sting Raider in the 25th Anniversary series I quickly bought it.  I skipped on the later Rise of Cobra release, but I felt compelled to buy this on sight.  Chock it up to my curiosity of the included Swamp-Viper figure.





The first thing I noticed is how small and compact the box is.  I knew Hasbro was making some cost saving moves with this line, but dang is this box small.  Gone are the big window boxes used for the 25th Anniversary vehicles.  The toy comes partially unassembled...part of the charm of old school Joe vehicles.





Pop in the center gun placement, snap on the new spring loaded torpedo launcher, snap on the engine cover, rear compartment covers, cockpit cover and assemble the fan mechanism.  Done.

Things I like about the Fangboat:

- Tampographs.  The large red Cobra symbols on the rear compartment covers and on the black hull aren't stickers!  The rest of the decoration are your standard fare clear stickers.
- Torpedo Launcher.  I thought it was silly at first, but I like how they took the original tooling of the boat and made the launcher fit in place of the original gun.  If you have an extra gun you can remove the launcher to have that more classic look.
- Swamp-Viper.  I love the head sculpt and the overall look of the figure.  More on him in a bit.

Things I don't like about the Fangboat:

- Canopy cockpit piece.  Call it mold degradation or back luck, but the plastic on the red portion of the cockpit is warped.  This makes the clear canopy piece not want to snap into place...at least without a lot of force.



The included stickers are pretty cool.  I love this new (is it new?) Cobra decal for the side of the boat.



Here is a close up of the issue I referred to.  See how the tabs on the front of the canopy cover don't tab in?  The red painted plastic dips down in the middle.  Not sure if this is a defect of mine or a problem they all suffer from.  I was able to take a flat head screwdriver and apply enough force to snap the piece in place, but now I'm afraid to remove it fearing the tabs will break.



Don't like the look of the new torpedo launcher?  Have no fear, just snap it off and steal a gun from your 25th/ROC Sting Raider!



I did notice a few changes to the mold when I put them side by side with my 25th Anniversary Sting Raider.  The engine cover has been remolded - using less plastic.  Notice the cover doesn't surround the wheel that spins the rear fan.



The other change I noticed was to the copyright info on the bottom of the boat.  This was has the blurb:

" Represented by: Hasbro Europe "

Not sure what that means, but this isn't printed on the bottom of the Sting Raider.



The included driver is a new version of the Cobra Swamp-Viper.  I'm sure a lot of Cobra fans were happy to hear the news of a new Viper figure, but alas keep your excitement bottled up.  Remember when I said Hasbro implemented some cost saving measures for this line?  Well look no further than the vehicle figures.  Here is Swamp-Viper in all his glory...with a T-crotch.  Yup, we're back to the days of G.I. Joe vs. Cobra figures!  Notice there isn't any elbow or knee articulation either.  Static poses is all you get!  His hands and arms are also molded in an odd position.



He can wield a weapon, but it doesn't look very natural.



This is about the limit of his poseability.




The best part of the figure is the head sculpt.  It immediately reminded me of the old Lamprey figures that piloted the Cobra Hydrofoil.  The head doesn't rotate side to side, but the molded "bandana" limits how far the head will turn.  The head does pop off rather easy allowing for customizers to work their magic.



Side by side w/ Copperhead you can see how much of a step back the Swamp-Viper is.  It's a shame Hasbro took this route as the Swamp-Viper figure had potential.



At the end of the day the Water Moccasin / Sting Raider and Copperhead win.  There are some redeeming merits about the Fangboat however that warrants a purchase.  It's not for everyone and I'm sure I'm in the minority when I say I like the new colors of the boat and the articulate challenged figure.

An encounter w/ Don Figueroa...kind of

While doing some e-mail cleaning up this evening I ran across a message I saved dating back to October 18, 2003 (thanks Yahoo!).  Earlier that year I had sold my MIB Brave Red Guist toy.  If you aren't familiar with that toy it was a nice red redeco of the Transformers Breastforce leader Deszaras/Deathasaurus.  I sold it on eBay for something like $300.  This was before PayPal...or least for me so when the buyer contacted me it was none other than Don Figueroa!  Don was currently drawing the Armada comic for Dreamwave.  I'm not sure how the conversation arose, but I asked for a sketch of Red Guist and this is what he sent over.

Nice, huh?  I believe this artwork was later used in Dreamwave's More Than Meets the Eye profile books.  I guess technically this is Deszaras and not Red Guist, but who cares.  I guess I was a little "star struck" at the moment.  Anyhow just a little story I wanted to share as I forgot about the whole instance until I saw the e-mail again.

Memorial Day haul

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend.  I got the chance to go on a date w/ my wife and spend some great time w/ my two little girls.

My wife and I had some time to ourselves this weekend as well as my mom kept the girls overnight.  First time we've been away from both of them at the same time and while we missed them, it was nice having a chance to do...well whatever we wanted!

 In addition to dinner we had a chance to hit a few stores and not feel rushed.  I was able to peruse GameStop while my wife went shopping for clothes.  I'm not a big fan of GameStop for many reasons, but I get free gift cards for filling out surveys online.  That said I had a few bucks left so I dropped on in.  I really didn't figure I'd find anything, but several things caught my eye.  Since I had lots of time to look I browsed just about every section.  In the Wii section I noticed a few used games were marked pretty cheap...like $4.99 cheap.  One of these games was Rygar: The Battle of Argus.  I was big fan of the PS2 version of Rygar and I figured this would be a fun play through again w/ the Wii controls.  Plus combined w/ my membership card and gift card I only had to toss in a buck from my pocket to make the purchase.

A lot of stores were sticking to the street date of the 28th for the new G.I. Joe Retaliation toys so I didn't find anything until today.  While my wife hit Old Navy I hit a Super Target and found a few new Joe toys.  I'm not buying nearly as many toys these days - especially Joes, but a few of the Cobra items piqued my interest once I saw the promo pics online awhile back.  Plus w/ the movie being pushed back to March 2013 and the rumor about Hasbro asking retailers to return their toy stock of Retaliation toys I figured if I want 'em I better grab 'em while I can.  So I grabbed the Cobra Fangboat, a Red Ninja and Cobra Trooper.  Expect to see reviews of all of these at some point in the near future.

Lastly I made a "emergency" trip to Walmart this evening to grab some dry cat food.  I had previously bought some food from Walmart that was a $1.50 a bag...and my cat wouldn't eat it.  I left it in his feeder dish for several days and I don't think he touched it.  I felt bad so I grabbed a bag of food for him this evening since I forgot to earlier today.  This Walmart had finished up their new reset in the action figure aisle and I saw a shopping cart of trash and broken down boxes.  In the cart was this small Transformers KRE-O signage.  I looked around for an employee to ask if I could take it.  Shockingly there wasn't an employee around - so I took it.  Held it in my hand as I grabbed my wallet to pay for the cat food...cashier never said a thing.  Not quite sure what I'm going to do w/ it yet, but I've amassed a small collection of Transformers promotional pieces now.

All in all it was a great weekend.  Thankfully it'll make for a short work week - especially for me since I'm calling it a day early on Friday so my wife doesn't have to spend her 30th birthday all alone.

Transformers G1: Rage (Stormtrooper)

Around the same time as I got back into collecting Transformers again at the tale end of G2, my exposure to the internet was expanding. It didn't take long before a e-pen pal of mine told me all about the "G1.5" figures as I call them. When G1 died a slow and painful death in the U.S., Hasbro Europe continued to release new figures that were exclusive to the European market. When G2 was released in the U.S. some of these new toys were included in the series, but many never made it across the pond.

Most collector's should be familiar w/ the color changing cars from G2. 4 were released, 2 Autobot and 2 Decepticon. Each had a self contained weapon that had a air billow allowing it to squirt water. The front of each car was made of a different type of plastic that would change colors when exposed to water. Not my favorite gimmick by any stretch and the 4 figures released were just OK. For whatever reason a few of these color changers stayed in Europe (called Stormtroopers). When I found out about these I knew that one day I'd have to have them. It took many years before I was able to track them all down - but well worth the work.

Rage is by far my favorite of the Decepticon Stormtroopers. This is the 2nd Rage I've owned, opting to upgrade my loose figure for this nice MOC specimen.

These have to be some of the largest blister cards I've seen used for Transformers! Talk about a waste of packaging.

I know a lot of these exclusive European TFs came in different packaging depending on where in Europe it was released. Some toys even had different names in different regions. Rage is also known as Aquanaught. I'm not sure though if all of them had multi-lingual packaging.

Rage was released in 1993, but thankfully Hasbro didn't go too crazy w/ the neon colors. Perhaps that is one of the reasons I was always drawn to him over some of the other Stormtroopers. His colors don't look completely out of place...well with the exception of the green headlights and windows!

Stupid factory applied Decepticon decal isn't centered. I would've tried moving it, but I was afraid it wouldn't stick if I tried and I don't think these guys have ever had their stickers reproduced.

Say what you will about their water guns, at least the designers found a way to integrate them in their vehicle modes. One less thing to have to keep up with! Rage's weapon actually runs underneath the length of the car and the top is integrated in the front bumper.

I love the simplistic transformations of older TFs. While articulation is nice the lack of it doesn't necessarily take anything away for me personally. Rage's transformation is very easy. Pull out the car doors/arms, flip down the car hood and mull pack on the rear of the car/legs. Flip down the toes and position the arms.  See, told you that was easy.

The only downside to the Stormtrooper figures are their weapons and how they are wielded in robot mode. According to the instructions the air billow is supposed to tab into the roof of the car on the back. Problem with this is the plastic tubing gets bent doing so. I wanted to show this problem to everyone, but right after I took the picture I took the gun out of his hands. For display purposes I just laid his gun at this feet. It's a shame there isn't a better way for him to hold his gun...or is there. If you are reading his and have any ideas please let me know.

While the gun is a small set back I still really enjoy this toy. I was even happier to pick up the carded version for about what current "voyager" TFs retail for. I've got more "G1.5" toys to show in the coming months. In fact my this part of my collection has grown so much I'm faced with moving them and giving them their own space...but first I have to find that space in my already crowded collection!

Black Widow on cardboard

I don't duplicate posts between my 2 blogs very often, but I figured some readers here may find some interest in this post I did for my trading card blog.  Earlier today on my other blog I shared some nice colored 1/1 sketch cards from Upper Deck's new Avengers Assemble set.  Those sketch cards are exclusive to hobby boxes so one may ask why bother w/ retail?  I'll give you 7 reasons.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

Need I say more?

In all seriousness Upper Deck did a great job with this set.  I like how they took images from both Iron Man movies, Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America as well as the new Avengers movie.  I've put together 75% of the set already and I hope to post my want list and extra cards soon just in case anyone else is working on this set as well.